Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Biscuits’ Is the Anti-Bullying Anthem We All Need: Listen (page 10)

Related Tags:

The song has a sweet title and fun, sing-along melody, but as cutesy as “Biscuits” may seem at first, there’s actually a solid message of hope and positivity baked into it as well. And it’s advice we all need to hear.

Musgraves wrote “Biscuits” last year with Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark (the same writers she teamed up with on her previous single, the ACM Award-nominated song “Follow Your Arrow“). When she played the song for an audience in Dallas last October, she joked that she was clumsy, always falling over herself and felt like this song was her gift to anyone else like her in this world.

“If I had any amount of advice to hand out to the world,” she told the crowd. “I feel like this would be it.”

That advice? Putting others down won’t get you anywhere in life. “I’ve never gotten taller makin’ someone else feel small,” Musgraves sings against a banjo-led arrangement. “If you ain’t got nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

Musgraves then makes her message even clearer when she reaches the song’s chorus: “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.” It’s a line that’s not only perfect for a modern-day country song, but also seems tailor-made for a T-shirt.

But slogans and ‘biscuits and gravy’ puns aside, the message at the heart of Musgraves’ new song is serious.

For instance, while “Biscuits” doesn’t specifically call out bullying, it’s certainly an undercurrent in the song’s lyrics, which are all about toning down criticism of others. This alone makes the song plenty topical. Statistics show that cyberbullying is on the rise; according to the Cyberbullying Research Center, about half of young people have experienced some form of cyberbullying, and 10 to 20 percent experience it regularly. And with a majority of teens using a cell phone regularly, it’s nearly impossible to escape.

With “Biscuits,” Musgraves makes the point that minding one’s own business isn’t just something you might say to a nosy neighbor; the bottom line is to treat other people with respect, instead of laying shame and throwing insults.